Last year, American Express started giving Platinum cardholders a credit for Walmart+ that completely offset the $12.95 monthly cost of the subscription.
Doctor of Credit is reporting that multiple readers have recently had issues with the Walmart+ credits properly posting on their accounts. Evidently, Walmart has changed the line item being billed on at least some accounts from “Walmart+ Monthly” to “Walmart+ annual fee” and Amex’s system doesn’t recognize the annual fee as being an eligible charge for the credit.
We’re not sure how widespread this is, but anyone with a Walmart+ subscription should check their Platinum accounts. If Amex hasn’t credited your subscription for July (or June), you should contact Amex via chat. It is a known issue and they will manually process a credit.
Quick Thoughts
Walmart+ is Wally World’s attempt to counter Amazon Prime. You get free shipping on items that are stocked by Walmart as well as same-day, free delivery from your local store with a $35+ order. As Stephen pointed out in his terrific post about ways to cut down on gas costs, Walmart+ members also save 10 cents per gallon on fuel at Walmart, Murphy and ExxonMobil stations.
Earlier this month, ad-supported Paramount+ access was added to Walmart+ subscriptions, making the it much more appealing to many Platinum cardholders who weren’t inspired enough to activate the benefit previously.
While this sounds like it’s going to be a bit of a pain for those who are enrolled, at least Amex is aware of the situation and is working proactively to fix it. I can’t imagine it will be an issue into September. That said, it doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence for the folks who were already skeptical about adding Walmart+ to begin with.
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Online chat rep “Ronnie” knew of the issue and said it was “due to some technical issue the credit is not triggered”. They then said “regarding this I would request you speak with our specialist Platinum Services team” and offered to provide the phone number, but then never responded to the chat after that. I called the number on the back of my card and got the credit issued, although it didn’t initially seem that the call center rep knew what I was talking about. Wasn’t exactly quick and easy, but the credit has been issued. Thanks for the heads up!
I noticed this earlier this week. Contacted them yesterday and they informed me it was know issue with Walmart+ and my july and August credit would be posted within 5 days. I had issues earlier this year with sirius and peacock as well and it was fixed quickly. I just don’t like having to jump thru hoops to sign up and then babysit my account for credits.
They tried the obfuscation tact with me too. Saying that I was credited on Jun 6th for my Jun 21st Walmart+ $12.95 charge. I looked at the year-to-date charges and there were 6 charges and only 5 credits, I don’t care which credit is for what charge, only that the credits are equal to the charges. The CS Rep, tried to do a manual credit, but the system would not let him. He sent a note to his manger with a promise that it would be taken care of in a day or two. Now I have another thing to stay on top of.
Did Plat Chat about 2 minutes ago and was given the $12.95 credit for July. I was advised to check for the July credit in 3 – 5 biz days and check back for August in a few days.
Walmart+ says I am still a member through today but no credit card on account now and no charges were made to my platinum in July and Aug (but were in June). So I am not out any money but weird, I don’t think it is going to another card and can’t see transactions for Walmart+.
I was billed for $13.86 July 12 and not credited. First time that it has happened. Did a chat a few weeks ago and she said she would manually credit it. Was only credited $13.00. My August 12 charge has not been credited yet.
My Audible credit was also missing for July in addition to Walmart+, so check those also
Another DP with a situation similar to Glenn. Spoke with a Chat Rep, and they said I will have to wait the full 8 weeks for the credit (which they mentioned is per the offer terms). When I mentioned the issue of “Annual” vs “Monthly”, they said it was a known issue but they are unable to process a manual credit until it hits the 8-week mark.
Will try again tomorrow to hopefully get the credit manually processed.
My experience has not been good at all. My May and July credits did not post automatically. For some reason June did. My August charge posted on Aug 20 and was credited today but shows Aug 24 date. I have chatted twice and called once. After my first chat in late July, I was assured a manual credit would be posted for the May charge and to wait for 2 business days for July to credit. Neither happened. Chatted again and still nothing. Then called and was told this is a known problem that the team was looking into. Expect it to be fixed soon. Bubkis. I did see a weird $13 credit show up on my account a few days ago but my charge is $14+ after tax so I am still out 1 credit and $1+. PITA and almost thinking about cancel W+
I had already heard of issues with this credit when I encountered the problem in June. I had to escalate to a supervisor before I got my credit The agent I spoke with gave me a lot of doubetalk and just could not understand I was missing a credit.
I hate having to keep track of and double checking this nonsense.
The agent did take care of Julys and made a note to take care of August. They also informed me I should talk to Walmart & have them charge it different.
I laughed at how many calls to how many numbers I would have to waste to get to the IT folks at Walmart & have them code their charges differently because a guy with an Amex card wants them to.
Had my smoothest complaint/call ever with a credit card CSR who pretty much knew why I was calling before I even said the words “Walmart.” She took care of the credit in 20 seconds and I was off the phone right away.
Thanks for letting us know. My Walmart + showed as annual, not monthly and didn’t get reimbursed. I chatted with Amex and they took care of it.
This has been a problem since July billing for me. Both chat attempts with Amex were not very usefull and frankly time consuming. They both wait I would have to wait. I finally got an agent who offered a “courtesy one-time credit in recognition of my many years of cardmembership”. Like they were doing ME a favor. The agent still shorted me $1.63. My fee is $14.63 and I only got a credit for $13. They also told me to take it up with walmart. So I did – I discussed with Walmart the first agent thought I wanted to change my billing from annual to monthly (wrong!). Since there are plenty of people and now they are aware of the issue – it’s frankly Walmart’s fault in my opinion, this should eventually be corrected, but I’m sure I will have to ask for my $1.63 back!
Yeah I had a ton of issues with Amex chat agents fixing this. Walmart billed me the July fee on July 1st and the August fee on July 31st so Amex didn’t credit the second one. When I chatted with them even threatening to close my card they still gave me grief saying they would only allow one credit for July. Crazy. I would have canceled my card on the spot but need to get my MR’s out first. It took over an hour on chat to get them to manually credit it.
Mine is working, this is my first month so maybe that’s why.
However my Audible credit does not always post and I have to chat.
Mine hadn’t posted for August. Appreciate the heads up!
I contacted Amex via chat on Wednesday. Within one minute I received this response:
“I would like to share that was an issue from Walmart’s end due to which the charge was billed as an annual membership instead of monthly and the benefit is for monthly membership. However, I’ve issued a manual credit of $12.95 from my end, and you will see it within 5 business days. We’ve already notified Walmart about this issue, so it shouldn’t happen again.”
The credit showed up yesterday (Thursday). Amex support, both phone and chat, has always been exceptional for me.
I just contacted Amex via chat, they said immediately it was a known technical issue, and was issued a credit for my August charge. Had not had issues in the past.
In reality if you chat with Amex about this issue they will obfuscate and try to convince you it is normal before, after multiple requests, they finally apply a manual refund. I had to contact them twice. It isn’t as simple as you’re claiming
Good to know. You’re the first person I’ve heard from that had to contact them twice. How long ago was this? And did you contact via chat or phone (or both)?
Both were via chat. Around August 17th regarding the July 17th charge. Just chatted with them now about the August 17th charge and was told they are aware of the situation and please wait 6-8 weeks. No offer of a manual credit. I didn’t push it.
They told me the same 6-8 weeks off some script. I had to push them much further to give me the credit. What a waste of time.
FYI Its now 3 chats in and while I got the manual credit for July, they have repeatedly refused to do it for Aug 17th. Tell me computer will fix it by 8 weeks from charge. Have put it on my calendar AGAIN for manual refund when we hit 8 weeks. Just a gigantic hassle. Amex chat agents used to be reasonably good but seem to have gone down the toilet more recently.
Newer charges are being credited correctly.
The one I got credited manually was posted as $13 credit and $1.xx because according to one of the chats they’re limited to what they can manually credit at $13? Anyway, $13 seems to be common. The charge here in California is more than that though.
In my case June was handled normally on the 17th (presume the change happened after that), July wasn’t and August wasn’t and still hasn’t been credited.
And 8 weeks since August charge that didn’t credit. Fourth chat now. Relatively easy manual credit. As before two credits, one for $13, one for $1.18. What a giant PITA.